And the day is done...

Finished off my birthday with Don and dinner on the deck at Ray's.  

Thanks for all the brithday wishes, my cup runneth over.

Birthday Booze

Birthday cocktail at Ray's Cafe!  :-)

The banjo makes me smile

An evening of bluegrass with Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers at Snoqualme Casino.

The Graduate!

Jimmy in front of Black Bridge, Westminster College ready to get his M.B.A.

Got beer?

Don demonstrating his beerstache.  :-)

My kind of people

Starting on April 1, 2011, I get to be one of these people! I'm so excited!

Lisa Rinna?

Resort logo looks like Lisa Rinna as a mermaid, don't ya think?

Reunited, and it tastes so good

My first bowl of the famous Dory Cove chowder in 13 years, Yum! Without a doubt it is the best around!

A little too close

I'm very uncomfortable being this close to an Anaconda.  Yikes!  

Cheers!

Green beer for St. Patrick's Day!  :-)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Saw this on Facebook this morning and couldn't resist sharing it. Cheers!

Laundry Fail

At the end of the cycle all I had were suds.  Boo!

This day in history

I saw this blog post yesterday. The author, Derek, links back to blog posts that he has written on March 1st for the past decade.  I haven't been blogging long enough to do that, nor am I a reliable enough blogger to be able to link back to past posts the way he did but it got me thinking about creating something similar.  I do keep detailed calendar records and used that archive to note the following significant things about March 2nd in my life.

2003: Spent a quiet day at home (I was living with my Mom and Step-Dad in Salt Lake City at the time) in preparation for the following day which was my first 8-hour work day since completing chemotherapy in December 2002.

2004: Sat in a room at St. Mark's Hospital and did clinical chart audits from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

2005: Moved into my apartment in Queen Anne (Seattle) after a few days at my brother's house in Port Orchard and one night on the dining room floor under moving blankets. You can read more here.

2006: Mom and Rick (Step-Dad) made their first trip to Seattle since my arrival so that Mom and I could throw a baby shower for Kristen (my sister-in-law).  We had dinner at one of my favorite neighborhood spots, Buckley's.

2007: My little brother Jimmy was in town visiting from Salt Lake City.

2008: Don and I returned from a weekend trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon to celebrate my 5 year cancer-free anniversary.  You can read about it here.  You can see the pictures here.  I blogged about my first 3 years in Seattle (complete with chart) here.

2009: Spent the day at work but was barely able to walk thanks to sore muscles from hiking the Dungeness Spit the day before.  You can see pictures here.

2010: Spent the day at work and then had yummy crepes and wine at Citizen with Don in the evening.

Don't know what today will bring, we shall see.  :-D

The the winner is...

The big night has come and gone.  All the winners have been announced, except ONE!

I received a total of 9 entries in my Oscar Pool, 10 if you count my picks but I wasn't competing for the prize.  Thanks to all of your who participated it was really nice to have such a great response this year.  So without further ado, here are top standings.

1. Brian - 17
2. Diane - 14
3. Alisen - 12
4. Don, Katharine, Teresa - 10

Congratulations Brian!  Your prize will be sent to you shortly!

Smiles

My first Amazon tote order has just arrived!  Smiles all around!

Oscar Pool: Only 4 more days to get your picks in!

Only 4 more days to enter my Oscar Pool and have the chance to win a $50 gift card to Amazon.

You can find all the details here.

Coffee!!!!

It's Monday. Ugh! Need coffee NOW!

Caught!

Got caught by the Ballard Bridge and ended up as the first car, a first for me.  :-)

Oscar Pool

My friend Alisen updated her Facebook status in the middle of the Super Bowl last Sunday with the following, "...awaiting my super bowl @ the end of the month....the oscars baby! This football stuff is for the birds." You said it girl! If it weren't for the ads, the Super Bowl would be of very little interest to me. But I LOVE the Oscars. I love the red carpet, the dresses, the jewelry, the speeches, the tears, the gold statues, all of it.

If you are as Oscar obsessed like me you are probably already making your picks so why not test you predicting skills against others and enter my Oscar Poll.  Fellow blogger Defective Yeti puts together this script every year and shares it with the blogosphere, isn't that nice of him. Click this link, fill in your answers and click the "Send Picks" button.

IMPORTANT: If I don't know you (meaning that we aren't connected through another site e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Blogger or we aren't friends in real life) please send me an email at jewellsinsea@gmail.com and let me know that you entered the pool and what name you used. This is very important to prevent an incomplete contest like 4 years ago. To this day I still have no idea who Ron R. is.

The person with most correct answers will win a $50 gift certificate to Amazon.  The winner will be announced on Monday, February 28th right here on my blog.

Good luck! And don't forget to tune in for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards on Sunday, February 27, 2011 on ABC at 5:00 p.m. PST.

Thought of the day

Just discovered this yesterday and loved it and wanted to share.

Children Chapter IV

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

-Khalil Gibran

Morning News Woes

I like to watch to have the news while getting ready for work in morning.  They repeat the stories, weather and traffic often enough that even thought I'm out of the room for large portions on the broadcast I still get the general gist of what is going on in the world and what to expect as I venture out into it.

When I first moved to Seattle in 2005 I started watching KOMO 4 Morning News.  Shortly after I got accustomed to the newscast they made some changes that drove me crazy.  The weather was reported by Jim Castillo who drove me crazy with his beady little eyes (photo here).  The anchor for the news was Natasha Curry who has a freakishly large forehead that I found it visually distracting so early in the morning (photo here).  So after I complaining about it for a few months, I finally switched from KOMO to KING 5 Morning News.

The vibe of the KING newscast was extremely pleasant.  Brad Goode, Joyce Taylor and Rich Marriott are very comfortable with one another and very professional.  I was happy to "wake up" with them everyday for several years.  All that changed in January 2010 when they added Tracy Taylor as the traffic reporter.  From the very beginning she drove me crazy but I didn't want to be too quick to judge so I pledged to tough it out until the vibe returned to normal.

By December it was clear that my annoyance level was getting a bit out of control when I caught myself making faces and yelling at the television early one morning.  I feared that if I didn't make a change I would be throwing things at the television soon.  It still took 2 more weeks to officially make the change, I think I was still hoping that I wouldn't have to do it.

In mid-December I switched back to KOMO 4 Morning News.  It has been 3 weeks and all is well.  I've found my new morning news!  Mike Dardis, Molly Shen, Paul Deanno and Rachelle Murcia help me start the day informed and not at all annoyed.  Because of my sensitivity to the traffic difficulties on KING I've been the most critical of Rachelle Murcia who reports the traffic but she does it in an effective and professional manner, it is just delightful.

Let's hope this change lasts for a while!

50 in 2011

The beginning of the new year always makes me look back at the previous year and take an accounting of what I've accomplished.  I was a bit astonished when I discovered that I read only 11 books in 2010.  I adore reading.  I love getting lost in different places with fascinating people.  I love exploring different worlds, lifestyles, places in history in the way that you can do when reading a book.  Movies and television shows just aren't the same; You don't get to spend the time with the characters and really get to know them and their surroundings/situation like you can in a book.

I'm usually reading several books at a time.  One is usually fiction, the others are usually non-fiction and thought provoking.  My shortest read in 2010 was The Girl Who Played with Fire which I completed in 5 days.  The longest read was Half the Sky which took me 5 months (each chapter was heavy and took some time to digest.) There were big periods of time when I wasn't actively reading anything which I can't explain.  I'm a bit angry with myself for not more actively engaging in something that brings me such joy.  I've decided that 2011 will not be a repeat of 2010 and will be challenging myself to read 50 books in 2011.

Yes, I realize that 50 books is nearly a book a week.  Yes, I realize that this may be a bit crazy, but I'm still going to commit to giving it my best effort.

Do you think you are up to the challenge?  What to join me?  I've created a private group in Goodreads for friends who would like to commit to the same challenge.  If you are interested in joining let me know by email or by leaving a comment on this post and I will send you and invitation to join the group.

Happy Reading!